February 23rd, 2013:

Song #30 on the Popdose Top 100 Covers list is “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”, originally by the Rolling Stones, and covered by Devo. Here’s the original:

I trust we’re all familiar with this one. I love seeing 60’s-era videos of the Stones. For all the freaking out certain cultural types did over Elvis and the Beatles, it’s clear that these are the guys they should have been worried about. Here’s Devo:

I think this may be the first example of a song where I knew the original version but had never heard the cover before. I have to say, it was exactly what I would have expected a Devo version of this song to be. If I could go back in time and get them to do an entire double album of covers like that, I surely would. What did you think?

Vote below for your favorite idea among the 20 Mayors Challenge finalists! Voting is open from February 20 through March 6.

The Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Mayors Challenge is a competition designed to inspire America’s mayors to generate innovative ideas that solve major challenges and improve city life. The Huffington Post and Bloomberg Philanthropies have partnered to give readers an opportunity to select their favorite idea among the 20 finalists. Click the grid here to learn more about the 20 finalists or scroll down to watch videos from each city.

Click the link above to cast your vote. If you need a reminder of what this is about, see here and here for previous blogging, and here for Mayor Parker’s pitch for Houston:

One Bin for All is a revolutionary idea for residents to discard all materials in one bin, treating “trash” as valuable assets, dramatically increasing recycling using game changing technologies.

Recycling, admittedly, is difficult. Though I am an avid recycler, I can be stumped by aluminum foil or a wet paper towel or a plastic straw. Not surprisingly, so are millions of citizens, and it is estimated that cities only effectively recycle about 30 percent of their trash.

[…]

This first-of-its-kind innovation uses technology in a way that has never been done before. Allowing technology and new process systems to sort household “trash” and derive an initial 55 percent diversion rate, and upwards of 75 percent with composting, anaerobic digestion and catalytic conversion (biomass-to-fuel) is more efficient and effective. The technologies (shredders, sensors, density separators and optical scanners) have been used previously in the waste, mining, or refining industries, but will be combined in a new process which will yield a much higher diversion rate. This system has the potential for cities across the globe to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make a significant contribution to improved air quality, provide an easy-to-use program for residents, save money and increase revenues.

Our innovation will:

Provide every residence with curbside One Bin for All services;

Decrease the volume of waste sent to landfills and increase recycling rates;

Improve air quality by eliminating truck routes and reducing methane emissions from landfills; and

By building the first total material resource recovery facility in the US, Houston has the opportunity to improve the health and quality of life of its citizens, divert more municipal solid waste than any other large City in the nation, save money, change the way citizens think about materials, reduce extraction of raw materials and influence other cities to embrace this transformation.

There’s a video over there as well, so click to see it and then click here to vote. You have until March 6 to cast your vote. Hair Balls has more.

Democratic Texas House members [have] filed an immigration resolution that could serve as a litmus test for Republican support for reforms being suggested at the national level.

House Concurrent Resolution 44, which urges the U.S. Congress to “swiftly enact and fund comprehensive immigration reform that creates a road map to citizenship,” comes after President Obama’s Tuesday State of the Union Address, where he again pushed Congress to craft a bill to address the 11 to 12 million people living in the country illegally, and to repair the nation’s existing immigration system. Filed by state Reps. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, and Ana Hernandez Luna, D-Houston, it incorporates statistics from the Texas Comptroller, the Cato Institute and the Partnership for a New American Economy, and statements of support for immigration reform from former state Reps. John Garza, R-San Antonio and Raul Torres, R-Corpus Christi, the Texas Federation of Republican Women and a national reform framework authored by a bipartisan group of U.S. senators.

Anchia said he wanted the resolution to have some substance and make a strong statement: that Texas can lead the way on immigration reform.

[…]

Anchia said he would reach out to the House Republican Caucus and open up the resolution to joint authorship. He said the timing was ideal after seeing that lawmakers in Texas were unwilling to pass “divisive” state-based immigration measures similar to bills passed in Arizona and Alabama.

“Texas has resisted that and I am proud of the state for having done that,” he said. “If we do not keep momentum going and it fails I worry we won’t be able to get anything accomplished for a long, long time.”

The resolution states that, according to a 2006 study conducted by the comptroller, the deportation of the millions of Texans in the state illegally would have resulted in a loss to the state’s gross domestic product of $18 billion. Figures from the Cato Institute indicate an overhaul of the country’s immigration system would add an additional $1.5 trillion to the country’s GDP.

HCRs aren’t bills, and if adopted they have no force of law behind them. They’re basically legislative petitions, saying “this is what we believe”. It’s a symbol, but if a resolution like this were to be adopted, especially by a strong majority, it would be a powerful symbol, one that just might perhaps get some attention from the folks who can do something about it. Our members of Congress, in other words. Of course, some of them need to hear it more than others. Congressional Democrats are almost entirely on board. Here’s the five Democratic Congressional freshmen from Texas opining on the subject:

Comprehensive immigration reform must include a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants living in this country who pass a background check, pay a fee along with back taxes and meet basic citizenship, civics and English language requirements.

In addition, the plan should include funding to increase the number of customs and border patrol officers at our ports of entry while also allocating resources to improve infrastructure at these ports. These investments will create jobs on both sides of the border and keep our border economies sustainable and thriving.

Immigration reform should include interior enforcement measures to improve the removal process for those who want to do our country harm. Worksite enforcement must also make mandatory the use of employment verification systems while improving that system to weed out criminals.

Finally, the package should reform temporary worker programs and create the opportunity for all, while ensuring we remain competitive in all industries and areas in our country and abroad.

The time is now to make the move on immigration reform, and we support efforts to carry out this monumental task. The time is now because of the needs of our country — the urgent need for a younger and more diverse workforce and the need to ensure that the next generation of Americans pays their fair share and keeps vital programs such as Medicare and Social Security solvent. We also need to know who is here so we can weed out those who pose a threat to our country and criminals who should not be here.

We will continue to secure this country from people who would do us harm and must support the men and women on the front lines of this effort by providing them with the necessary equipment and manpower to effectively protect our country. We, however, will remind our colleagues that some border cities like El Paso and others along the South Texas border are regularly ranked as the safest in the United States. We can no longer delay immigration reform. The time to move forward is now.

The words are clear, and the need is clear. Who’s on board, and who will stand in the way?

Google, which has been developing and touting the future of self-piloting cars, has parked a driverless car in front of the Hilton Hotel downtown, site of the three-day Texas Transportation Forum. The modified Lexus hybrid is equipped with all manner of sensors that allow it to be aware of everything occurring around it and instantly react to those obstacles. The most noticeable of those features is a rotating laser radar device, mounted on a frame on the car’s roof, that generates a detailed three-dimensional map of its environment.

[…]

The American-Statesman has learned that Texas Transportation Commissioner Ted Houghton will give the car a test spin at 3 p.m. Tuesday.

Anthony Levandowski, a Google project manager who has worked on the driverless car project, is scheduled to appear Tuesday morning as part of a panel on “How technology is reshaping your transportation options.” Google, while it has been working on the device for several years and lobbying for it to be allowed on public streets for testing, has not announced any plans to commercialize the vehicle.

That was from Tuesday. Dallas Transportation, from whom I got the embedded photo, has more including a video. Though Google has successfully lobbied three other states so far to allow their driverless car on the roads there, as of last report there wasn’t a serious effort in Texas to push for an amendment to our laws. Not yet, anyway. The Trib examines that state of affairs.

Google did not seek permission from any local or state agencies before driving its experimental vehicle on Texas roads and highways alongside thousands of other vehicles, the company confirmed. Any other company testing self-driving technology in Texas wouldn’t need to either. Neither Austin nor Texas laws appear to address self-driving technology.

“I don’t think legally there’s any issues of a self-driving car or specific ordinance against a self-driving car,” said Leah Fillion, a spokeswoman for Austin’s transportation department. “It’s kind of a fuzzy area.”

Anthony Levandowski, project manager for Google’s self-driving car research, said the company brought a Lexus hybrid outfitted with its autopilot technology to the Texas Transportation Forum to get elected officials and members of the transportation industry more familiar with the emerging technology.

During a panel discussion Tuesday, Levandowski said the company hoped to have the software on the market within five years.

[…]

Though no Texas or federal laws address such technology being used on the roads, Levandowski said that would and should change.

“We do think it would be great to have the existing transportation code clearly address this technology,” Levandowski said.

The state’s transportation code currently refers only to “a person” operating a vehicle. Levandowski described an updated version as specifying “for a vehicle to operate, it must have a licensed driver inside.”

[…]

State Rep. Joe Pickett, D-El Paso, a member of the House Transportation Committee, said he had not considered the issue of self-driving vehicles but that it’s probably something state lawmakers should look at more closely.

“It’s worth a discussion because government is usually reactive instead of proactive,” Pickett said. “The first time [a self-driving car] runs over a fire hydrant or, even worse, a person, there will be a flurry of bills filed.”

If that’s the case, and if Levandowski’s five-year prediction is accurate, we have two, maybe three more legislative sessions after this one to get ready and be proactive. Better start studying up, y’all. Did any of my Austin readers have a chance to see this? Leave a comment if so and let us know. More from Dallas Transportation here.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center of The University of Texas at Austin has been selected by the Texas A&M Forest Service (TFS) to serve as the local grower of loblolly pines to restore wildfire-damaged Bastrop County.

The 2011 Bastrop County Complex fire destroyed 1,691 homes while burning 33,000 acres that gave the area its picturesque landscape. Already, the Wildflower Center has worked with a university graduate student to provide 35,000 loblolly pines that are being given this winter to county residents. The center will now expand its growing operation as one of three contractors with TFS to produce up to 6 million trees total by 2017 for the Lost Pines region.

“The Wildflower Center is conveniently located for project partners to access the pines we grow before a planting event,” said the center’s Senior Director, Damon Waitt. “We can also serve as a holding area for trees grown by the facilities that aren’t near Bastrop County.”

[…]

The tree growers will use seeds the TFS collected from Lost Pines loblollies years ago, with future TFS contracts expected to continue the program through 2017. “The Lost Pines is such a unique area ecologically, and the trees there are more drought-tolerant than loblolly pines in East Texas, so we are thrilled to have this seed source to work with,” said Dr. Waitt, who is also the center’s senior botanist.